Let them eat...cotton

New York City officials estimate that 250,000 lucky duckies working poor in the city would have slipped into poverty without food stamps and tax incentives.

Food stams are, of course, fall under the U.S. Dept of Agriculture. And in this Great Times, when unemployment is, apparently, acceptably high, and Deficit Hawks throw their support behind new and improved air wars, the Republican led House is looking for places to nibble at the edges of our budget deficits. That means the USDA is in their cross-hairs. And what should be up for grabs at the USDA? The obscene subsidies to huge multi-national agribusiness enjoying the benefits of the rising cost of food?

Certainly not.

At the moment, 90 percent of agriculture subsidies go toward the production of just five crops — corn, wheat, rice, soy and cotton. “Most of that 90 percent went to the large farming corporations,” said Annie Shattuck of the Institute for Food & Development Policy. “Much of those commodities were not used for food, but for animal feed and industrial applications. Cotton is not even a food.” Yet lawmakers on the Agriculture Committee feel that this wasteful spending is more important than helping Americans families weather the Great Recession.